It is often necessary when transporting pizza or other "fast-foods" by automobile to place the container of pizza or other fast food onto the automobile seat. However, most car seats are designed for human comfort and are slanted rearwardly to accommodate the average person. This configuration is not exceptionally well suited for transporting food stuffs, particularly those food stuffs which have a tendency to slide about the food-carrying container, such as hot melted foods, including, for example, pizza. Rather, the standard design of automobile seats causes the foodstuffs in the container to slide towards the lowest point of the car seat, typically, the back rest. This problem is readily encountered when transporting pizza, whereupon the cheese and tomato sauce tends to "run" towards the lowest point of the car seat, and accumulate in a thick, messy glob. Moreover, with increased concerns about the earth's environment and the focus on recyclable and biodegradable materials, food containers increasingly are made of paper or cardboard, as the use of plastics, particularly styrene, has become disfavored for use in fast food containers. One inconvenience in using these paper or cardboard containers is their tendency to absorb the hot melted food ingredients. It is therefore undesirable to have such food containers come into contact with and possibly soil the automobile seat. In this day, when more families depend on take-out and hot-food home delivery in order to meet their busy schedules, there is a need for a device which provides a simple and inexpensive way of transporting pizza or other fast food in an automobile seat, while avoiding the aforementioned problems.
The prior art discloses numerous portable food and beverage containers, as well as car seat trays. However, these containers are complicated in design and construction, requiring more material to manufacture, longer time to assemble and are more expensive to produce, than the platform device of the present invention. For instance, U.S. Pat. No. 2,875,940 to Dunn discloses a portable food and beverage container or holder requiring a multitude of score lines and die cuts, including a bottom panel, a pair of side panels scoringly connected to opposite sides of the bottom panel, a top panel and a leg structure, each leg structure including a pair of panel sections scoringly connected along the length of the leg to extend normal to each other when the container is set up.
A fundamental problem associated with many of these containers, trays and the like is retaining the leg of these devices in a perpendicular position relative to the horizontal surface, such that the leg does not collapse and render the entire device useless. Both Dunn (U.S. Pat. No. 2,875,940) and Goings (U.S. Pat. No. 3,326,446) provide solutions to this problem which are both overly complicated and expensive. Dunn provides a leg 69 which has a side panel attached on each side 66. Goings provides a leg 74 which is attached by two panels, the top panel and the bottom panels. In both cases, the devices disclosed by Dunn and Goings necessitate the use of more material, are more complex and expensive to manufacture, and require alot more time to assemble than the presently claimed device. All these factors are very important in the food delivery business. Moreover, neither Dunn nor Goings allows for the length of the leg to be adjustable, which creates further problems as there are great differences in the angle and depth of automobile seats. Also, neither Dram nor Goings provide any means to allow a better fit for the platform in bucket seats.
Other attempts have been made to produce devices for transporting foodstuffs, particularly pizza. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,012,080 to Altieri Jr. discloses a pizza wedge support in order to provide a horizontal surface when disposed upon the inclined upper surface of an automotive seat. The wedge support is a box which requires a significant amount of material and does not allow for adjusting the angle of inclination.
As discussed above, these prior art devices have severe limitations and disadvantages associated therewith, including (a) the amount of material used, (b) the length of time it takes to assemble the device, (c) the inability to adjust the device to the varying angles and depth of various automobile seats, (d) the inability to adjust the device to varying contours of automobile seats, such as "bucket-seats", (e) the expense of the device and (f) the indisposability of the device.
Despite the teachings of the prior art, a need still exists for an uncomplicated, inexpensive, easily and quickly adjustable levelling device which will allow one to convert a car seat into a horizontal platform upon which a fast food container, such as a pizza box, can be supported. Such a device should be simple and cost effective to manufacture, should be easy to assemble and use, and should be capable of adjusting to various contours of car seats.